Pippa Scaife in Marketing Interactive

CNNIC's Commercial Director for Emerging Brands, Pippa Scaife, has had an article published by Marketing magazine, one of the top trade publications in Asia. The opinion piece talks about the positivity brought forth by Great Big Story's original storytelling and how it celebrates the unusual heroes who inspire hope and create an emotional connection with its audience.

...Whilst negativity spawns negativity, stories of achievement and audacity allow us to feel that there are reasons to be positive. Hope is about believing that things can improve and, in order to buy into this, we need to be able to see people who are pushing for change, who are embracing obstacles because they know they can be overcome, and who are capable of making us believe that the impossible is achievable. It is these change-makers that allow us to feel as though hope is not a waste of energy.

“My work with Great Big Story has exposed me to some amazing people through us telling their stories. ”

Pippa Scaife

An independent research body discovered that 75% of the GBS audience reported a high emotional engagement towards the unusual heroes we featured, with this positive sentiment creating an uplift in brand favourability and demonstrating that it is for the good of both our audiences and our partners to attach themselves to these disrupters.

As brands like Nike, Unilever, and P&G have shown us in leading the charge, advertising can be at the forefront of a shift towards positivity. We need marketing to make us feel good, represented and capable, to drive us from an economy of aspiration to one of inspiration. Whether it’s an 80-year-old female bodybuilder or a quad amputee who scales mountains, it’s incredible to know that heroes come in all forms and that, whoever you are, there is someone like you achieving the impossible.